


Death can’t keep us

by smaragdbird



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Ambiguity, Character keeps dying but it doesn't stick, Comes Back Wrong, Delusions, Hallucinations, M/M, is Gibson suffering from cotard delusions or is he actually cursed?, sanity slippage, who knows - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 09:49:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20703986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smaragdbird/pseuds/smaragdbird
Summary: The first time William Gibson died was when he drowned on the shores of Greenland.The last time he died being stabbed by the man he loved. The man who loved him back.





	Death can’t keep us

**Author's Note:**

  * For [plutonianshores](https://archiveofourown.org/users/plutonianshores/gifts).

The first time was easy to explain. It had still been summer or what passed for summer in Greenland. The water hadn’t been as cold. He had been fished out of the water quickly enough. He was fine.

He was fine.

If he felt chilled to the bones, that was normal. If his throat felt too tight and his chest too heavy, Doctor McDonald said nothing was wrong with him. If he couldn’t remember how he had made it out of the water, he was lucky. 

Billy was fine. He had not drowned on the shores of Greenland, aged 22, and been washed ashore by the tide.

He was fine.

/

That winter on Beechey, many men had coughed, Billy had been no exception. Some of the men had started coughing blood. He hadn’t. Instead he had spat out water, again and again, as if his lungs were still filled with water.

His ribs ached as if there were bands of steel around his body, squeezing it tighter and tighter. Like John, he’d wake up in soaked sheets, but Billy never became feverish. He was cold. Always cold.

Cold since Greenland.

Billy pushed his food around on the plate and slipped bits to the Neptune when no one was looking.

John Torrington lost five stones in the first half of winter and finally his life on New Year’s Day.

John Hartnell died only three days later, thin as a skeleton despite the rations his brother fed him.

William Braine’s blood was as red as his uniform where it splattered the canvas of the infirmary.

Billy was fine. 

He coughed up water. He was cold to the touch. He never ate anymore.

He was fine.

/

“Sorry”, the caulker’s mate on Terror was small with a pointed face, and most importantly a first-timer. “I’m a bit rubbish at sewing. I hoped, maybe you could help me?”

As far as Billy was concerned, the caulker’s mate had proven himself to be rubbish at everything from his job to his general duties, but at least he was good company and a fast learner. He also had the best gossip, though he wasn’t telling half of what he knew.

The caulker’s mate was also very pretty.

“What do you need?”

“I’ve nearly taken my own fingers off trying to mend this”, Hickey said and held out a leather glove with a tear in the side where the seams had come apart.

“You need a special needle for this”, Billy replied, turning the glove over in his hands. “I’ve got one of those. Come by my cabin after eight bells.”

“Thank you very much, Mr Gibson”, Hickey said, taking the glove from him. “Perhaps I should leave them with you. Your hands are freezing.”

“I’ll see you later.”

/

Only the captain’s cabin had been designed to fit more than one person inside yet somehow, Billy and Hickey made it, sitting on his tiny bunk side by side. Leather work wasn’t easy, so Billy was sewing instead of leaving a potential disaster in Hickey’s hands.

“You’re very good at this, Mr Gibson”, Hickey observed. Before that he had asked questions about Billy’s life in the Royal Navy, about Africa and China. He must have been working on shore before this journey, or perhaps on one of the traders crossing the Irish Sea. No other sailor Billy had ever spoken to had seen so little of the world.

“You will be to by the end of this journey, Mr Hickey”, he replied, timing his movements with the rolling of the ship. At least they had a calm sea tonight, that made his work easier. “Every sailor needs to know how to mend.”

“I hope you’re right”, Hickey flashed him a smile. “I seem to have two left hands when it comes to sewing though.”

The first few weeks it seemed as if Hickey had two left hands for everything. Billy hadn’t been any better when he had first joined, but then he had been seventeen back then.

“Are your hands still cold?” Hickey asked, his tone markedly different than before. 

Billy looked down and saw that he had put a stitch through his own skin. He hadn’t even noticed it. “More than I thought.” He tried to downplay the injure, to hide it because by all rights he should be howling with pain from having pushed a needle straight through his finger. He cut the thread and pulled the needle from his flesh. No blood.

“Here, let me help you”, Hickey said, pulling Billy’s hands between his, rubbing them together to bring some warmth back to him.

“You don’t have to –“

“Please, you’ve done me a great favour Mr Gibson”, Hickey interrupted him. He looked up at Billy from under his lashes and Billy had the impression that Hickey was here for more than just a torn glove. “Your hands are like ice.”

“I’m fine.”

/

Doctor MacDonald looked at his hand. Where the needle had punctured the skin, it had left marks, still visible but no blood. “I didn’t feel a thing, Doctor”, Billy said. “Is that normal?”

MacDonald clearly thought that this was not worth his attention, but was too polite to say so. “It can be, yes. Try to wear gloves, that could help.”

Billy also wanted to ask if it was normal that he didn’t bleed, but he guessed Doctor MacDonald would give him the same answer. “It can be.”

“Thank you, Doctor”, Billy said. “I appreciate you taking the time.”

MacDonald gave him a kind smile. “The dark months can play strange tricks on our senses. Do not let it disturb you.”

“Thank you”, Billy said again. 

Hickey was outside the infirmary, looking over his shoulder to meet Billy’s eyes, his head tilted in the direction of the cargo hold.

Billy followed him. The Doctor had told him there was nothing to worry about. This was all normal.

He was fine.

/

Going up on deck had been a mistake. The beast was stalking the ship like it was its prey. But Peglar had been on duty and below deck, Billy had to deal with Cornelius’ presence. Fear was a terrible thing but humiliation was even worse. 

He still should not have gone above deck. There were plenty of other spaces on the ship where he could have hidden from Cornelius, including his own cabin. But all of these places held memories whereas the deck did not. Out in the open they had barely ever glanced at each other.

Peglar wouldn’t mind the company, but in the end he had been next to William Strong when the monster attacked them. 

Within seconds William was gone and Billy pressed a hand against his stomach where its claws had swiped him. Someone…Armitage? Peglar? Raised the alarm and Billy managed to slip into his cabin the confusion.

As he pulled up his shirt, he could see that his skin was shredded where the beast had gotten to him. But instead of blood, a thin silvery liquid was coming from the wounds. It looked like lead drying in the air.

Would MacDonald still say that this could be normal? That it was just a side effect of the cold and the dark? 

Billy let his shirt fall down. Fear gripped his throat, settled its chilly hand around his heart and squeezed tightly. If his shipmates knew they would surely drive him of the ship, out into the cold and the dark like the waters on Greenland’s shore.

He wiped the silvery stains from his hands and smoothed down his clothes until he looked presentable again. He was a steward in the Royal Navy.

He was fine.

/

Thanks to the masquerade, no one had seen his dress burn or they would have surely asked questions how he had survived. Billy didn’t know himself only that he had found himself in the crowd of men outside the burning tents.

The skin on the back of his legs had blistered maybe even burned but he didn’t think that was what had killed him. He thought it had been the smoke.

Although was it really death when it was so temporary? Could he die at all? What if he had burned to cinders in that tent? Would he have woken up regardless?

He had so many questions and no one to ask. Why had he been cursed? And why?

/

The last time he died, he was stabbed in the back by the man he loved. The man he had betrayed. The man who loved him back.

“Prepare yourself to die”, Goodsir had told him and Billy had wanted to laugh.

If only he could die.

He woke up surrounded by corpses and Cornelius leaning over him, grinning at him with bloody teeth. For the first time since Greenland he felt no pain, no cold and he was actually hungry.

“What did you do?” Because Billy remembered it being bright outside when Cornelius stabbed him, and they were in a tent. Now though he could see stars in the sky.

Cornelius pulled him to his feet by his hand, then held on tight as he sliced Billy’s arm open with the same knife, he had stabbed him with.

“Ow!” Billy tried to pull back but Cornelius’ grip was too strong. The wound was superficial but blood was welling up, red and hot. Hickey sucked it into his mouth and where his lips touched Billy’s skin, the wound disappeared. “Are we dead?” He hadn’t seen his own blood in three years. Death could be the only cure for this.

Hickey shook his head. He spun around, arms wide like a madman in the empty landscape and Billy understood.

They were fine.

Just fine.


End file.
